37. Break it, stretch it, bend it, crush it, crack it, fold it.

Hey Edmonton. Recognize this view? It's from the INSIDE of the nunnery on Whyte/92 St. I found this photo on a forum about Urban Exploration.

Loosely defined, not in my words, UE is:
.... a hobby shared, to various degrees, by people all over the planet. The common thread seems to be an innate curiosity, which manifests itself in the drive to discover our environment, which happens to be urban. By going places others normally do not go, and seeing things other rarely see, we are able to learn about and gain a deeper knowledge of the world that we've build around ourselves.

Reading sites like Drains Of My City fill me with such...excitement, that I can't believe I hadn't read much about this before. You may have heard of infiltration, a worldwide hub of gentle-break-and-enter information. I stumbled upon it, and followed links until I found the above-mentioned forums and now my heart is racing with the anticipation of exploration. There are certain buildings that have always captured my interest. I lived across the street from an abandoned nunnery, one of two in the neighborhood; the other is pictured above. I would sometimes sit at night and stare at it, and wonder what was inside. On a couple of occasions I would go walking around on the grounds, looking in the windows and imagine the lives lived within. The idea of poking around, trying out door handles to see if they were open, breathing musty air of a dark boiler room - these things actually appeal to me.

I think I can relate it back to a sociology class I took at uni called Built Environments, taught by a fascinating woman named Yoke-Sum Wong.. (Yep, that's her site.) In the class we discussed the walls (artificial and physical, imagined and real) that we as citizens build and tear down around ourselves in the course of our lives. We raise some to keep others out, some to keep ourselves in. I could rant about the (north) American system of exclusionary (read: classist) building systems, but this is about getting into places we shouldn't be. An assignment in that class was to go in pairs to showhomes in 'gated' communities, posing as young, educated, interested couples with money...and watch and learn as they tried to sell us a crappy, purpose-built home with no individuality or character, and examine why people want that.

This class often linked architecture and desire - our WANT to have our environments reflect a certain (and as I learned, assumed) quality...perhaps better described as taste. Taste is stores engineered for 'easier consumption'; it's what feeds our battle between perceptions of want vs. need.

[a quick aside: for those that have seen Massive Change, Bruce Mau has a well laid-out manifesto on the subject of want vs. need in design...interesting ideas; I'm not sure if I agree with some of them.]

Says I: I want to explore abandoned buildings, with the hope of reconnecting with the lives experienced inside. To understand what changed, and why the buildings are past their..."expiry date". To feel like a rebel. To experience the rush I used to get when tagging at night.

Says the security guard, armed with night-vision cameras and dogs: I need to protect this space. My income depends on it. I know nothing of the desire of my (real and/or imagined) enemies.

I don't know where this is going. In my mind there is a clear connection between design-human space-neighborhoods-capitalism-infiltration-exploration and...joy. I hope I've made that connection for you...better yet, I hope you've made that connection yourself, and want to join me sometime while we explore somewhere...dark.

speaking of dark:


I am a matchflare
you are another
Together
for an instant
we pierce the surrounding
dark

Two matchspurts
I'd have us be
Not wicks
that flicker
to extinction
and black silence

I love all passing things:
roses and dust
Their brief stay,
like your smile, instructs me
to embrace the world
with irony and joy.

- Irving Layton


beautiful, non?

take care, friends. explore...safely.